Choose Retouch to work on individual areas of an image. Its four method buttons stay visible so you can switch between Clone stamp, Healing brush, Patch tool and Content-aware fill. When using a brush, move over the image to see an outline of its size. The outline follows Brush size (px) and the current zoom, including brush selections for patch and fill tools. Press [ or ] to decrease or increase brush size by 5 pixels. Hold Space while dragging to pan without painting; release it to resume the brush.
Choose Clone stamp to copy pixels from a clean source area. Hold Alt/Option to choose a source, or use Choose source, then paint the repair. The source button changes to Cancel source picking while active and Change source once a source is set. Retouching uses image pixels before colour adjustments.
Choose Healing brush for the same source-picking workflow when the clean texture needs to blend with the destination colour. Brush size, hardness and opacity remain available. Select clean texture and leave room around the blemish so the boundary can blend.
To repair a defined area with your own source:
- Open Retouch → Patch tool and draw a rectangle, lasso or brush selection around the unwanted detail.
- Choose Choose patch source, then drag from the selected area to clean texture. A dashed guide marks the source area.
- Adjust Patch feather (px) if needed, then choose Apply patch. Inspect the result or use Undo to restore the image.
A patch is limited to an area of up to 2048 × 2048 pixels. Lower feather values suit small selections; larger selections can use a softer boundary. Patching and filling combine earlier brush repairs into the retouched image.
To replace a small object or unwanted detail:
- Open Retouch and choose Content-aware fill.
- Choose Brush to paint the area, Rectangle to drag a box, or Lasso to draw around it. Release to keep the selection and close a lasso. Escape discards an unfinished selection. Marching ants show the selection boundary. Switching selection tools clears the pending selection. Use New, Add or Subtract to set the selection mode. Shift adds and Alt/Option subtracts while drawing with the current tool. Use Clear selection to start again.
- Click Apply fill. The editor fills the area using nearby image detail. You can cancel processing without changing the image.
- Inspect the result with Before, or use Undo to restore the previous image. Clear pixel edits removes all fills, patches, brush repairs, painted pixels and erasing.
Small areas on simple backgrounds work best. Complex edges and large objects may need several smaller fills or clone repairs. Each fill is limited to 262,144 selected pixels and a surrounding work area of up to 2048 × 2048 pixels. Fills do not extend the image beyond its current crop.
Applying a fill combines earlier clone strokes into the retouched image. Global adjustments, filters and effects remain editable. Saved projects retain the filled image and original pixels; older project files still open. Pending patch and content-aware fill selections are not saved. The canvas tools save their active selection in projects and provides painting, erasing and magic-wand selection.
Selecting Retouch returns the preview to After and closes the comparison divider. Compare is disabled while any of these interactive tools is selected. Before remains available for inspecting the original; choosing a source, painting or drawing a selection returns to After automatically. Switching views finishes the current stroke or selection.